Ronald Watson "Ron" Henley (born December 5, 1956 in Houston, Texas) is a grandmaster of chess, chess writer, producer of chess videos and is involved in financial trading funds. As President of RWH Advisors, International Grandmaster Ron Henley acts as Special Consultant to Ultra High Net Worth Individuals and Family Offices.
Henley was awarded the International Master title in 1980, and the International Grandmaster title in 1982. He won the GM title by winning a 26-player round-robin grandmaster super-tournament in Surakarta, Denpasar, Indonesia, defeating Grandmaster Tony Miles in the last round.
Henley has been second, analyst and trainer for former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov in several matches throughout the 1990s. Henley has written several chess books, and also served as a chess trainer and promoter of young, women chess stars such as Irina Krush. At University of South Florida, Henley received one of the first ever chess scholarships in America. While there in 1976 the USF Chess team won the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship with a perfect 8-0 team score. In 1977 Henley won the Association of College Unions National Individual Championship. Henley narrated the double-volume chess video, "American Chess Princesses," in which Irina Krush, Elina Groberman, Laura Ross and Shirley Ben-Dak present some of their best games from the 1997 FIDE World Youth Chess Championships held in Cannes, France. In the late 1990s Henley founded the www.chesssuperstore.com which sponsored Irina Krush and Hikaru Nakamura. He was appointed by Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov as President of the World Chess Champions Council Inc, a New York not for profit entity which promotes chess in the schools.
From 1985 through 2001, Henley was an American Stock Exchange Member, as a trader, market maker and specialist. Henley traded extensively in Phillip Morris, Wells Fargo and Teva Pharmaceutical. From 2001 to 2005, Henley was a founding partner and Head Trader of a statistical arbitrage family of hedge funds, with clients such as Bank of America, Gottex Fund of Funds and Aegon USA Insurance Company. Henley went into business consulting where he joined the Board of Directors of several private companies including Quantum Genomics. Henley re-entered the world of finance.